From Where to Here
A video podcast exploring cultural exchange, languages, & identity. 🌍 Hosted by Alexandra Lloyd, celebrating diversity & fostering connection through powerful conversations.
From Where to Here
Ep01: The Art of Learning a New Language as an Adult (Solo)
The Art of Learning a New Language as an Adult | From Where to Here Podcast 🎙️
Learning a new language as an adult can feel overwhelming—but it doesn’t have to be! In this episode of From Where to Here, I dive into the myths, challenges, and strategies behind language learning as an adult. From personal experiences to research-backed insights, you’ll walk away with a new perspective on how to make language learning work for you.
🔹 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✔️ The biggest myths about learning a language as an adult (and why they’re wrong!)
✔️ How long it really takes to achieve conversational fluency
✔️ The power of immersion and cultural context in language learning
✔️ Why making mistakes is the key to success
✔️ Actionable strategies to help you learn faster and stay motivated
💡 Whether you’re just starting or struggling to stay consistent, this episode will give you the confidence and tools to move forward!
If this episode resonated with you, like, comment, and share with a fellow language learner! 🌍💬
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đź”— Links
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đź“Ť Recommended Resources from This Episode:
- CSA The Spanish Academy: https://learncsa.com/
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Sponsor Feature: Red Cat Coffee House
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This episode is brought to you by Red Cat Coffee House and their Landmark Series Coffees. You can find the coffee blends online, at your Red Cat locations, or your local Piggly Wiggly.
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today's episode is brought to you by REDCAT Coffee House and their landmark series coffees as a get lover I could not resist but introduce you specifically to this bland called light rails it features a cat on the label but not only that each bland features a landmark is inspired by a landmark of the city this one is inspired by our vibrant Rainbow Tunnel downtown and it has sweet fruits and mixed berries you can find the landmark series including blends like Iron Works Full Steam Ahead Alabama Ujuband and John's Valley Trail either online at Red Cap locations or your local weekly it's coffee with a story and even with a feline charm from where to here is independently produced by me Alexandra Lloyd crafted with curiosity culture in a little bit of coffee hi I'm Alexandra Lloyd a French Canadian who's called Birmingham Alabama home since 2,017 welcome to from where to here the podcast that celebrates the rich diversity of languages cultures in the stories that connect us all each month I'll sit down with inspiring guests from different backgrounds to explore their cultures languages and tackle some fun in our truth there or debunk segment whether you're a language enthusiast a culture lover or just curious about the world you're in the right place let's dive into your next favorite cultural adventure learning a language as an adult sometimes seems impossible I know for myself even it's been difficult to at times think of could I learn another language could I really learn the way I intended to and speak fluently right we have that conception about what speaking fluently languages or at least I have for a very very long time and there's just already that perception that many people have when learning a new language whether it's a language that you hear often that you're exposed to without necessarily speaking it or whether that's a language that is only spoken in a country that's very far from where you live and we do think that way as adults kids are just sponges right just pick up on every words and it seems very easy because our brain is still in development and I have was given that example one time and I think it's a great example where if you have a baby you're gonna give the bottle of milk and say hey this is milk but hey here's your milk the visual there's the the this the auditive and there's the context that just makes it it makes it easy for the baby to pick up on the words because there's also the aspect of repetition that comes into play where this probably happens once a day if not more so all of these elements contribute to making it faster for the baby or the kid to pick up on the language I know as adults we have busy lives and we have busy schedules we already have our habits that are set in a way and it's hard to get away from those it's hard to incorporate new ones I think we all struggles with that but I really think that there is a way to get through learning a language with our busy lives and as adults especially as adults we have so many other benefits that sometimes we tend to forget about and one of it is you master a language already and what's a better way to use that language that you already know to help you learn a new one and we're gonna talk about that you have so many experiences in your life that will help you also pick up on that other language that you're trying to learn another thing is that you are more focused on the process of learning a new language and that's that's important because as a kid you may not have cared if you were put in a class to learn another language that might have been something that you were just doing cause you had to so in this episode I wanna talk with you about ways to go through the struggles of learning a new language but also all of the benefits and the joys of learning a new language can bring you into your life before we do that I have compiled some myths because there are many myths about learning a language one language many languages and I wanna dive into those now let's look at these the myth No. 1 and this is probably the one that I hear the most adults can't learn languages as well as children and I briefly talked about it from university of Kansas 2020 there has been a research study made and it says that while kids pick up pronunciation more naturally research shows adults excel in other areas such as vocabulary grammar acquisition both vocabulary and grammar acquisition in addition to that adults also bring existing language skills which we were just talking about and cognitive skills how your brain will think pay attention and just kind of process all of this process information that makes that makes any adults highly effective learners now that this has been said and even proven by research you can forget about giving this as an excuse myth number two learning it takes too long adults often believe they don't have the years it takes to master a language that's a good one too we all have fallen to those myths right and telling ourselves excuses and that's really what it comes down to however studies highlight that setting realistic goals like convert conversational fluency which they qualified in this study as B2 for those who are into the numbering that's not something I personally pay attention to because whenever I set goals for myself and learning a language I'm specific about more the context and the topics that I wanna learn and be able to speak about and to me that has more value than a number attributed to just use for those who are less familiar with that they're using grading you when you pass certain exams I do think the benefit of having an understanding of where you fall with these is that it gives you some structure studies highlight that setting realistic goals such as conversational fluency can be achieved in months with focus practice the C E F R which stands for the Common European Framework of reference for languages estimates that achieving intermediate proficiency in many languages takes around I'll let you guess how many months of consistent study does it take to be fluent for English speakers we're talking as an English native English speakers how long would that take it breaks it down by different languages and I think that's great because I don't think all languages has the same level of difficulty for instance French and Spanish or both romantic languages there's a lot of similarities but even even English has some similarities with French in a way or you anglophones use our French words in many ways and don't even realize it in the your day to day I can think of an impression of deja vu or which is funny for me to say a word that is French with an English accent such as this one I need to do a little parent disease or something that's really also funny to me as a native French speaker when I say a parent disease that really refers to a tingent in a tingent in English you use the word Tangent and I'm there might be other synonyms it's going off the main topic the main point temporarily but with the intention of returning to it so whenever we do a parent disease is just like hey as a side note and then going back to the main topic how and this is totally fine and I find myself now using it the same way Americans say it is certain words such as baguette fries you would add the word French French baguette we need to go buy a French baguette like a side of French fries with my burger I just call them fries I just call this a baguette but again I find myself now kind of calling them French fries just because that's how I will best be understood if I ask specifically for French fries I want the thin ones I don't want the fatty ones that's always funny to me let's come back to to this average time to consistently study in order to learn a language as an English speaker is between 6 and 9 months let's just pause here for a moment I truly believe this I wanna share with you what has been my best learning experience when talking about languages that was with Spanish and it was during a specific period of time and that was back in 2022 that I started for seven months was a total of about 29 I don't like 29 but 20 something sessions but I think I didn't get up to 30 sessions of a one hour with me Maestra in Guatemala had my teacher online a tutor my experience was me maestra de Guatemala that in Guatemala Pedro your parent Dido con area in ladinia I'm learning with her online my teacher my tutor from the country of Guatemala and we are interacting together online she had curriculum that she was following and I had exercises to do between sessions and we will talk together during the session honestly the most beneficial thing was to be able to speak with someone that can speak in return which a conversation usually happen both ways right that was very very helpful and if you don't have the luxury to pay a tutor which by the way they were very affordable I'm happy to share which school I I did that with they are based in Guatemala I think there are free apps out there that you can use to at least have that conversational practice with native speakers no matter where you are in the world and to get a little bit even more details the estimate oh the CEFR from 2023 they say Spanish French Italian Portuguese require sick between 600 and 750 hours so they qualify these languages as easy second place or for moderate or intermediate you have Russian Vietnamese and Hebrew between 900 and 1,000 100 hours and most difficult languages can you take a guess there's one that I mean obviously so there are a couple that I I would have assumed but one I would not have think of and the one I would not have think of is Arabic and know a lot of a lot of the people that speak Arabic also speak French so cause when I went to Morocco they spoke both languages so I could get around in French that was very convenient but that's not one that I would have think of and the other ones are Mandarin Chinese Japanese in Korean the time estimated to consistently study to be able to speak fluently that one of those languages is over 2,200 hours and there's a mention about having structured study plans which when I was a I was doing French tutor here in the in the Birmingham area I always made sure that we had a structure plan and I had my own study plan that I like to follow to make sure we tap into all areas of learning the language I really like that they mentioned that and they said for that study it says one to two hours per day vocabulary grammar speaking and listening that type of exercises and practice and also additional passive exposure I really love that dimension that because I'm a big big big believer in that active learning and passive learning active learning it's when you communicate with someone that's active learning because you're actually expressing yourself in the language and then an example of passive exposure would be watching a show or listening to music which I love listening to Spanish music so these are other ways they put language exchange of 30 minutes from 30 minutes to an hour as a passive exposure but that might be just watching or listening those audio podcast that you can listen to and you hear different people speaking having a conversation that would be also passive exposure but if you're engaging in that language exchange then it becomes active to summarize an easy language it will take you for this research between six to nine months and a harder language between two and three years to become somewhat fluently fluent so two we're good myth No. 3 you need this one I would hear it all the time you need to live abroad to become fluent now you need to learn a language have some basics I like basic foundations before you go visit the country thanks to modern technology immersing in a language is more accessible than ever ever it's time for you to learn now if you've been considering learning a language there's no better time than starting today today studies by the Modern Language Association from 2022 and phases that online tools streaming media language exchange platforms create opportunities for immersion from anywhere in the world absolutely we can already move on to the next one No. 4 it's embarrassing to make mistakes as an adult how many of you have felt too shy to speak because you were not sure if you were good enough you thought I don't know how to pronounce that I'm not pronouncing this right I don't know what words come after if I say something that will be offending you're gonna make mistakes no matter what you should just start making mistakes so then you get comfortable with the idea of making mistakes because you can avoid them you're gonna make them they are crucial to the learning process and that at any age linguistic research from Cambridge University that was from 2021 underscores that adults who embrace trial and error retain new language structures more effectively we just don't wanna get out there but it's it's inevitable also native speakers are often supportive and encouraging when non native learners make the effort to communicate now some of you might say or might might think well I visited I went to Montreal that time they reply right away in English that is very possible especially if you went into the city where very much so easy to navigate in English without speaking French that's simply because they were trying to make it and I'm speaking for them right now because it happened to me before but we tend to naturally be wanting to speak the language that we think you you speak but I think there is absolutely nothing wrong and in putting your intention out there and saying oh I'm actually learning French I'm practicing my French would you mind if we keep speaking in that language unless this person is in a hurry I don't see why they would not say of course there's not a better time to start and I hope you see the value of it and whether you wanna learn a language because you wanna travel in a country that speak that language and that inspires you to speak the language because you wanna deeply connect with the community there which is one of my personal reason often time I think there's not a better way to connect with someone when you speak their language and whether it's just a few sentences it goes a long way it really does it might be that you have a spouse that speak the language and that motivates you because you wanna maybe teach both teach your kids that language or maybe you wanna connect with the in laws when you go visit the family might be because your work gives you better opportunities if you speak a little bit of that language and no matter what the reasons are the value that you find in it is really what's gonna drive you to do it there are strategies that you can start implementing and I wanna talk a little bit more about these and now that the myths are behind us so let's dive in No. 1 immersion and this is a key word that I've been using contextual learning and immersion is really key what type of envronment are you learning or what kind of context do you wanna learn in based on it might be your interest in might be use the actual scenarios that you will be using the language if you're gonna go meet the in laws this is the type of enrollment that you're gonna be in why not reproducing that so you can effectively communicate in a type of verbage that really align with who you're speaking to the role plays are good way to practice but also first to look at and what I mean by that movies the audio some type of podcast where you can listen to a conversation happening YouTube videos whatever you can find that has that context that you're looking to immerse yourself would be beneficial for you to pick up on not only the words that are said but also the nonverbal and even the tone of your voice and other areas like that that you wanna also pay attention No. 2 language exchange partners there's has never been an easier time to find those no matter where you are thanks to the apps out there they are free most of them there are some paid features typically you can access for just additional things that makes it Hindi such as translating at a message that you wrote or that the person sent you but in terms of just having a conversation it's free you just need to sign up have an account and then you just get to decide who you wanna have a conversation with and if I can give one tip from having done many of those is set the intention of what you wanna get out of this session especially if you get to the point where you have multiple language exchange partners to just say hey today I'm trying to focus on this area and this is a topic I'd like to practice when it was when it's the time that we speak the language that I'm learning the target language because oftentimes how this works is you have the other person that is a native speaker in the your targeted language and vice versa during the if you do a 30 minute session you're gonna do let's say 15 minutes in English which is your native language and then 15 minutes in Spanish if that's the language you're starting to learn to make it as optimal as possible and you could have some predetermined topics and that just always talk about how was your day what did you do that kind of thing No.3 language learning apps and communities so a little similar now if you are lucky to have local native speakers that you can convert with by all means go get coffee and go take a walk go hike go do whatever that you wanna do just regular activities but make sure you speak the target language and again and exchange between the two where you speak a language and then you speak the other that's a great way to practice if you have that luxury go and do it as often as you can No. 3 language learning communities and apps now I've already talked a little bit about it there are many out there I love the the one that focus on speaking the language because I believe many many learners what they don't do enough is to speak we all naturally seek a certain level to not say perfection but a certain level of fluency before having the confidence to speak the confidence come by you speaking the language and when I say speaking is the confidence come by making mistakes the confidence come by putting yourself out there and giving what you have giving what you know and it's not gonna be perfect it's might not even make sense the sentence that you're making but the goal of communicating how you know you have passed the message across is if the other person understand if the other person understand you have communicated successfully that's good enough you're good enough and then online communities in the sense that there are some forums that you can ask questions I've been part of some Facebook groups I find them helpful if I have a very specific questions to ask and that's always come handy now if you're just just just starting out apps such as the one that you learn short sentences and then you repeat after this this one could be good but I think it becomes very saturated pretty quickly and if your goal is to speak I would really focus at least 60% of your learning on speaking on speaking either to yourself in front of the mirror putting sentences about describing what you're doing as you're doing it if every morning you drink a cup of coffee well get in the habit of saying describing that you're drinking a cup of coffee or that you're making a cup of coffee and saying it out loud is key you don't wanna just say it in your head because you wanna hear your own words you wanna hear your pronunciation recording is really good too record yourself saying some things and then rewatch it and then try to improve little aspects of it but it all comes with practice it's like anything one of my favourite not because it's fun but just because it's necessary and it's to set realistic goals because it's one thing to be I'm gonna be learning this and that I'm gonna be speaking and I'm gonna be writing doing some fill the blanks and watching TV everyday and my targeted language and I'm gonna listen to music and during my commute and those videos and that that's all great but what is the goal what are you trying to do here seven months it's a long time if you are really serious about this seven months it's a long time maybe you have a goal for the first month what do you wanna accomplish and try to have those small wins spread out that supports the bigger strategy that supports the overall goal you're trying to achieve what inside drives you what's your motivation like your why should be what you start with and that should be the overall goal that you're trying to achieve long term and then what are you doing to support that if you're not familiar with smart goals get familiar because these are just very actionable steps to describe what you want or maybe you're just starting out vocabulary so please you gotta know what the words are before forming sentences so maybe you wanna learn 10 new words a day maybe you wanna be able to describe short activities that you do everyday and be able to describe them like you're telling a story to someone maybe you wanna be able to conjugate the verbs to have and to be which are too foundational and one thing you need to keep in mind is the vocabulary you might think well there's it's a lot of words that I need to learn to be able to bring it in the different situations but we reuse a lot a lot of the same words in any languages start with the top 1,000 words in your targeted language that's gonna make your life easier side note for the thousand words that's really the total of words that you might end up using as part of your learning and you conversing in the targeted language but really if you're just just starting out learning vocabulary words I highly suggest you start small start with 100 and then increase to a chunk of an hundred another 100 or maybe even just 50 start small and that might be 10 or 20 words a day per week you might reach the fifty words or a total of 100 new words at each week depending on your cabins and the schedule that you put together for yourself now leveraging context cultural context to learn faster I think this one is especially relevant once you have learn some of the vocabular words you can express yourself but even getting interested in that early on could really impact positively your learning experience because what that means is under sending from a society standpoint the norms that shape that culture if that makes sense understanding the individuals how they behave as a whole and what drive them and the things that are not thought in school I think the more you either hang out with people from that culture that you're trying to learn the language from or the more that you if you watch videos on YouTube about how they they live their life and I have it right here I was defined the cultural context and it says that it's related to the society where individuals are raised in and at how the culture affects behaviour it incorporates values that are Learned and attitudes that are shared among groups of people it includes beliefs meanings customs ideas language norms by you having the interest to go a little deeper and understand above the language what's out there and what shapes really how these individuals think and behave in what are their motivations what are their pain points like for them to act a certain way so it's it's it encompasses all of those behaviors and all of those attitudes understanding expressions and slang the best advice I have to give you on this one is to decide so let's say you wanna learn Spanish which is my my favourite language I had to ask myself what kind of Spanish do I wanna learn and it's not necessary but it's helpful the reason is because there are some slangs some expressions that each of these communities will have so I'll give you an example or how I did it is I listen to different accents I went on YouTube I searched offer different accents and I I just did my own research about that there is a the accent in the Caribbeans like Puerto Rico there is also in Spain they speak Spanish but it's kind of like that old Spanish that what I would compare to the Becois French the French in Quebec because of the conversation that happened years and years ago and that made it where we started on our own slang that small community away from all the other French colonies just because we were isolated which French and France it's more similar in that slang because they're all closer to each other if that makes sense I have a friend here in Birmingham she's from Toulouse and she pronounced her R more much so compared to another French person that's from masse so it varies greatly and I think the one that you would notice the slang or even the accent that you will notice the most would be greatly impacted to where they reside so that makes sense with the Puerto Rican accent because they're kind of more secluded Mexican Spanish and Colombian Spanish I think there's two that I personally think they are easy to understand but they each have some slang that is different expressions that they use I think the car they say different words I I can't even think of what it is right now but there are some differences just being aware of those differences and if you pinpoint one specific language but also a country that you wanna learn from country but sometimes it's even more of a community right now in France obviously you have so many different variations of French because of that so just been playing pinpointing which one you wanna learn will help you tremendously and then you can just build on the different variations for specific words that other countries might use the last one is one that I personally enjoy deeply learning about and it's the cultural aspects that are tied to the language you might think of the food the festivals they all have their own way of cooking you can learn a lot about that whether it's the spices that are added that makes me think recently I did a New Zealand recipe which is basically called duca for those who knows it is uh if you dip your bread in it's a mix of spices white sesame seeds and celery star salt kind of seasoning you basically take your bread dip it in olive oil and then dip it in the Duca I had a zoom call with someone from New Zealand she had a beautiful accent and I did have to ask her the most random ask but I had to ask her if she eats Luca and if it's common or if it's just something I read in my magazine and she said oh yeah we all the time and I was just so ah about it because I enjoy it myself and now I feel like I just brought a little bit more of that New Zealand culture into my day today um and at my people really just getting interested in those aspects can really enhance your overall experience with the language with with the learn process of the language at the end not only you will learn a second language maybe a third and let me tell you it becomes easier after you've have Learned more than one language and you will be able you have that mental agility that just your your your thinks differently I think it it just so many door it allows you to connect with others in the way that you would have never thought it was even possible how proud would you be of yourself for doing that it's definitely a great challenge to give you but to to be a and you'll find many benefits I'm sure having your personal motivation also goes a long way story time story god I really wanted to share with you story story fragments my life about language learning so here are the five stories related to language learning first last best worst and maybe I'll share the weirdest okay let's start first so first time I Learned a new language it was 8 9 years old and I guess Katya money in in the US I think you call that fourth grade which is like primary school it's one two three four fourth grade primary school the system it works differently for us back home so I'm always confused that's why I go by the age but I was 8 years old I believe when I started learning Spanish and that was at school that was even before I ever was introduced to English and I had such a great experience my teacher was amazing I remember taking those school pictures with her and she was my favorite teacher and I thought she was so pretty and I thought she was just great at what she does and she made just learning so easy and fun I just really wasn't into that class probably my favorite class of the time now the last language learn is ASL American Sign Language which funny enough I Learned the Canadian version which I believe we called ASL at the time I cannot think exactly when that was but it it was a song and um like formal at all and that wasn't at schools I don't know I've always been really involved in all kind of extracurricular activities so that might be just one of them I'll have to ask my mom to be honest but I remember fire so you do flames around or around fire small interruption here in case you can only listen to me and you can visually see my hands I simply have my palms open towards the ceiling and my hands would open every time I go up with one hand and then at the same time my other end will go down one hands up and simply opening closing my fingers and kind of just wiggling fingers when my left hand is up my right hand is down and then just go back and forth like this hopefully that makes sense if not you can just check out on YouTube to get a visual so we had learn some type of sentence in sign language and I still remember that up to today but that's the only part I remember I think if I would be exposed again to that sentence or story that we've Learned I would pick it back up but this past year uh and I to learn ASL I went in person so there is a church locally that offers it it's free and it's given by actual deaf individuals it's really lovely a great experience I have done it because my sister one of sister in laws she got really into it she is so good at it no and very inspired by her story I went there with her mom also went to the class and the cousin of my husband and her daughter so we were a small group attending it was a lot of fun now best is when I was learning Spanish but I had very specific goals that I've set myself and I also um focus on the speaking I had me the Cinco Binti Nueva Semanas about 25 29 weeks that I was learning Spanish with my teacher in Guatemala and that was that most beneficial out of all the the time been actively learning Spanish and I found myself just being very fluent in scenarios that I didn't expect that I will and then I travel to Colombia for the first time with my Colombian friend and Mexican friend the hubby was also there I forget to mention and we had a blast and I just had so much fun just conversing with local people that was that was award I gave myself at the end of this journey now worst I don't know that I really have one I think any language experiences that has been in one way or another um so maybe I mean if say anything I would say probably just learning on the app that doesn't make it as much focus on interacting with someone and it's solely on vocabulary you always wanna keep the learning to an extent that is difficult enough so you're really actively engaging your like your really working hard and not something so easy that it's like like kind of flow and in order to do that I really think you need to have that converse and optional aspects or even the reading a book that keeps it high enough when you think you got this then go a much more difficult okay now the weirdest it's really weird and I it took a moment to think of that one uh it's not a language in French we call it a vehla which is a coded language and that's something my friends and I had a ton of fun doing we will speak in that coded language where you add two it was two syllables after each syllables for instance in French I would say I'm gonna call you tomorrow in normal French you would say but in coded language that very long slang language you would say makes the sentence longer but it also confuse whoever is listening to you and he was just what's your weirdest experience with language learning I'd love to hear from you I hope you found this helpful and today is the best day to start so don't wait any longer just to end this before we before go I wanna share a quote with you that I personally like and that I would share with my differenti students back in the days and it is you have confidence you can have a lot of fun and when you have fun you can do amazing things the confidence come from within and that quote is from Jonah Moth you gotta put yourself out there and this is how the confidence will come you gotta make those mistakes you gotta capture as many of those mistakes in little boxes because the more you get then the more wins you're gonna get it's like the boxes of nose you get you get for asking all these things to finally get a yes but you gotta collect all those no's before you get to that yes box it's the same thing with the with those mistakes the more mistakes you make the more you will learn from them and the more wins you'll be able to celebrate go out there pick your language do it for all the the reasons make sense to you just just be proud of putting yourself out there because life is is about fun life is about doing amazing things and you got this you you can do whatever you put your mind to thank you for tuning in to from where to hear if you enjoyed this episode be sure to hit subscribe leave a review and share it with someone who loves discovering new cultures follow us on Instagram at from where to here pod for exclusive updates behind the scenes moments in a peek upcoming guests until next time keep learning keep connecting and keep celebrating the beauty of languages and cultures